


After Strobelight: "Do I Wanna Know?"

by kiddytank



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz
Genre: Alcohol, Biting, Clubbing, Drug Use, Drunken Kissing, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Music, M/M, One Shot, Phase Four (Gorillaz), Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 14:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiddytank/pseuds/kiddytank
Summary: The whole story is inspired by the song "Do I Wanna Know" by Arctic Monkeys, which "plays" throughout the whole story. I do not own the song in any way, or the lyrics.This story starts before, during, and after the Strobelight video, where 2D wonders what Murdoc was up to and why he was worried. With a mixture of the music, plenty of alcohol, and plenty of migraine medicine, he dwells on his worries and feelings about Murdoc and flashbacks of Plastic Beach until he snaps from all that liquid courage. Little does he know, Murdoc has his own feelings.





	After Strobelight: "Do I Wanna Know?"

**Author's Note:**

> The whole story is inspired by the song "Do I Wanna Know" by Arctic Monkeys, which "plays" throughout the whole story. I do not own the song in any way, or the lyrics.
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you like it!

Stuart looked at his phone, pacing his room, checking the clock for the 14th time in the past 10 minutes. Going out with his band mates again was exciting, just to do something fun and take his mind off of everything else that was going on, but time was just CRAWLING by. He flopped on his bed, looking at the numbers on the screen once again. 6:30pm.

It was still pretty early to go out to whatever hip club Noodle seemed to be really excited about. Part of him was nervous, too.

While Murdoc treats him better than he has in the past, he’s still the same person. It’s always hard to tell what kind of a mood he will be in that day. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he could feel or express anything at all. Anger, however, was something he was very good at expressing and he knew because he was often on the receiving end of it. Still, they’d been through a lot together. He’d accepted this to just be a quirk of his.

Stuart dressed himself once the clock hit 8:00pm. High pants, button down shirt tucked in with the top few buttons undone, and hair styled just enough.

The tall boy smiled at himself in the mirror, shoved his phone in his pocket, and trotted down the stairs where everyone was already by the door.

“Ready to go?” He grinned.

 

20 minutes later, they had made it. The club was spacious and brightly colored with neon lighting and modern furniture.

They were greeted by a few fans at the door, which were asking for pictures and autographs. When the crowd died down, they sat around a table nearest to the DJ, who honestly seemed pretty new to this whole thing. It wasn’t long before he was replaced, and Strobelite came on and filled the room.

Noodle was quick to take the dance floor, drawing applause with just an entrance and Stuart happily obliged when dragged along with her.

Murdoc rolls his eyes. Stuart notices, but ignores it. Typical.

As the song goes on, the older man gets up and walks off. At first, 2D doesn’t notice. He’s living in this moment that he don’t know if he will have again. Noodle is getting older, and well, so is he. He’s not as hip to dancing anymore.

Then, he sees the green man shoot him a disgusted look before he sits across from a shady gentleman. A wave of concern goes over him. Why did he look at him that way? Who is he talking to?

He looks back at Noodle, who is still looking at him with a big toothy grin. He smiles just as wide, and can’t help but think about her when she was little. Her smile was just the same then as it is now.

The next thing he knows, he is facing Murdoc again, who is also giving a smile- albeit much more sinister. Something is in his hands, but even with 2D’s height, he can’t see what it is. The feeling of concern slowly gets replaced with a feeling of dread. Though he couldn’t be sure, it seemed like he was looking his way. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

He almost didn’t realize it when the song came to an end, and as he came back to his senses, the sound of applause became louder and the club came back into focus.

Stuart ran long fingers though soft blue hair, gave a smile and a wave to the crowd, then made his way to the nearest empty barstool.

“Somefin’ fancy I suppose,” he tells the bartender. The bartender smiles and nods. For a little while, no music plays, there’s nothing but the rumble of people laughing and talking among each other.

The drink he gets is bright pink and smells like grapefruit. He stares into it. The color reminds him a little of Plastic Beach. Maybe he shouldn’t have been, but part of him was nostalgic.

In those years together, they had become really close. He didn’t miss the whale, but sometimes, he missed it just being them and Cyborg.

2D laughed to himself. “Maybe I’m a masochist,” he thought.

From the bar, he could still see Murdoc sitting in the same place, except now he was alone. A new song finally began to play. He looked back down at his drink. The liquid in his glass rippled as the bass rumbled from the nearby speakers.

 

_\- Have you got color in your cheeks? You ever get that fear that you can’t shift around, like something in your teeth? -_

 

Stuart looked back again, to find he wasn’t there. Without warning, the older man sits a barstool away and orders a glass of whiskey.

 

_\- Are there some aces up your sleeve? -_

 

They make brief eye contact before the blue haired man looks up at the rack of bottles on the shelf. Many brands he’s never heard of, and vodka in some very interesting flavors. He continues to feign deep interest in the bottles on the shelves as words fill his throat and stay in place. He swallows them. After so many years, why can’t he talk to him?

 

_\- Have you no idea that you’re in deep? I dreamt about you nearly every night this week -_

 

He squeezes his glass before taking a drink.

Looking at Stu from his peripheral vision, Murdoc sees the anxiety building in his singer. Murdoc takes a swig of his whiskey, and swirls the ice around in his glass.

“I don’t know what you’re so bothered about.” He says flatly, not looking up from his drink.

2D glances at him briefly, and shifts in his seat.

“Jus’, tha’ guy you was talking to s’all. He seemed... creepy.” Stuart’s voice was soft.

Listening to the song, he noticed how familiarly personal it was and cursed whoever was playing it.

Murdoc orders 2 shots for the both of them.

“He’s a business partner.” Murdoc explained, exasperated. He wondered why 2D was even concerned in the first place. He tilts his head back and downs his glass before downing the shot beside it. 2D does the same.

“You seem to be having fun though, yeh?” Murdoc inquires with a bit of an edge to his voice.

Stuart glances up with a sad smile and shrugs.

“Could be better.”

 

_\- ‘Cause there’s this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat, until I fall asleep, spilling drinks on my settee –_

Murdoc slides to the barstool beside the blue haired man, who pulls the stirrer out of his glass and rolls it nervously in his fingers. It’s almost too much, and he reaches in his pocket for his migraine medication, washing down 3 with his 4th drink of the night.

His head becomes full-feeling and cloudy from the mixture of medication and alcohol, and he wobbles slightly in his seat.

 

_\- Do I wanna know if this feeling flows both ways? -_

 

Slamming his glass down, he spins around on his barstool.

“Why don’t we ever talk?”

Murdoc rolls mismatched eyes.

“Mate, you’re off your mind right now. I’m not having this conversation with you right now.” He snorts. He stands up a moment, ready to leave.

Black orbs stare up at him.

 

_\- Sad to see you go, was sorta hoping that you’d stay -_

 

The real reason that he didn’t want to have this conversation was that he was never good at this sort of thing. It’s always easier to pin something onto your brain dead, wasted, and now drugged up friend than admit to a personality quirk. In all honesty, it was probably something they both already knew. 2D just wanted to hear him say it. He deserved that much. It was better now, while it was late and maybe they both could forget it in the morning.

He scowls, then gives a sad sigh.

 

_\- Baby we both know, that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day -_

 

Only the music plays for a moment, and between them is just silence. Stuart looks at him, waiting for anything.

The worst part is, he would accept any answer. Many times in the middle of the night he’s begun to type out messages to Murdoc on his phone that he ends up deleting before he can make the mistake of really sending it without knowing the kind of response he’d get. Likely, it would be left on ‘read’. It didn’t matter much, then.

 

_\- Crawling back to you, ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? Cause I always do. Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new, now I’ve thought it through. Crawling back to you. -_

 

A head of blue hair hangs heavy in pale hands.

 

_\- So have you got the guts? -_

 

Murdoc slowly looks up at him. He wonders what goes through his mind, and if he’s ever on his mind. More importantly, he wonders why he cares what goes on in his head. It’s mostly empty anyways.

 

_\- Been wondering if your heart’s still open and if so I wanna know what time it shuts -_

 

2D looks up slightly, staring at his palms a moment before turning and looking at the man beside him. His vision was blurry.

“…Stu? You alright?” Murdoc asks, his eyebrows knitted together.

Everything is too much. His head weighs 500 pounds and the air is suffocating. Stuart’s head falls heavy on Murdoc’s shoulder. The older man looks down momentarily, his gut reaction to push him off. Rather, he rests a hand on the top of his head. He can’t help but feel sort of sorry him, weak like this.

“It’ll be alright,” he mumbles into blue hair.

 

_\- Simmer down and pucker up, I’m sorry to interrupt it’s just I’m constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you -_

 

Stuart’s eyes fall open, and he’s aware of how close he is. Murdoc shivers, now fully aware of Stuart’s breath on his neck. He slowly removes his hand from the drunken boy’s head, and takes another drink.

 

_\- I don’t know if you feel the same as I do -_

 

2D lifts his head slowly, keeping his eyes down. His heart hammered in his chest.

 

_\- But we could be together, if you wanted to -_

 

Then, they made eye contact. It wasn’t long before flashbacks hit him like a flood. The song playing, the color of the drink, and the familiar sick feeling reminded him of Plastic Beach. He remembered the same eyes he looked at now looking at him so hatefully. He remembered the same eyes looking at him like he was a child. He remembered the same fucking eyes looking at him like he felt nothing at all, and that was the worst. Yet for some reason, Stuart chose to stay, because maybe he saw something more. He was kept in an underwater prison with a whale that tormented him relentlessly. He was fed whenever it was convenient and whatever was convenient. For those reasons alone, he should hate Murdoc.

 

With shaky hands, he reaches for his pill bottle and fumbles with the lid, squeezing his eyes shut.

 

_\- Do I wanna know if this feeling flows both ways? -_

 

So badly did he want to leave Plastic Beach and that fucking whale. He packed his things, and looked for a way to escape in the beginning. The nightmares were too much.

 

_\- Sad to see you go, was sorta hoping that you’d stay -_

 

Murdoc had gone by Stuart’s room to find most of his things in a box, and an escape plan. His heart ached, he was furious, but mostly, he felt betrayed. He thought that after all that time, they were friends of sorts.

Stuart never knew that Murdoc found out.

Later the next night, something had changed both of them. Stuart lay on his bed in his underwater prison, staring up at the ceiling with his escape plans in his hands. He day-dreamed life back in the U.K. when he heard music coming through the air vents. It was incomplete and rough around the edges, but it was heartbreakingly beautiful. It was the first time he’d heard “Broken”. It was then, he decided, that maybe Murdoc truly was capable of feeling though he would never outwardly show or admit to it, and he didn’t want to leave him alone.

He remembers the day he wasn’t confined to his underwater prison anymore, and they day he first read the sheet music for “On Melancholy Hill”. Stuart couldn’t help but wonder, even now, if that song was about them. Maybe wishful thinking.

 

_\- Baby we both know, that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day -_

 

Murdoc was thinking about the same things. Looking at 2D now, empty black eyes, missing front teeth, and permanent brain damage, he wonders why he stayed so long with him. Admittedly, he didn’t always deserve to have him around.

A loud noise startles Murdoc out of his own thoughts as he sees the tall man in front of him stand up quickly from his barstool, sending it crashing to the floor. He looks up at him, eyebrows raised.

 

_\- Crawling back to you -_

 

“I’m making a mistake,” 2D whispers to himself.

 

_\- Ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? ‘Cause I always do -_

 

Murdoc stays silent, looking up at him wondering if he’s okay and what he’ll do next. Stuart chews his lip until they’re bloodied, hands balled in fists, wishing for something or someone to stop him from doing something he’ll regret.

The bassist keeps his face calm, but internally debated if this is about that man he was talking to earlier or just a drunken outburst. Was Stuart really that bothered by it? He talks to people all the time. Did it always bother him like this? If it did, he’s never shown it.

 

_\- Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new -_

 

2D stares at him, obsidian eyes glistening with worry, filled with a million things he wanted to say, begging for time to explain them all.

 

_\- Now I’ve thought it through, crawling back to you -_

 

Murdoc grabbed the front of Stuart’s shirt and pulled the man’s ear closer. He was growing impatient.

“Just fucking tell me.”

 

_\- Do I wanna know -_

_\- Too busy being yours to fall -_

Stu’s hands trembled.

“Muds, I can’t.” he chokes out. Feeling feverish, sweat lines his skin like dew.

The bassist sinks his nails into his singer’s neck, threatening for an answer.

 

_\- Sad to see you go -_

_\- Ever thought of callin’ darlin’? -_

“I jus-“

Murdoc raises his eyebrows.

 

_\- Do I wanna know? -_

_\- Too busy being yours to fall -_

_\- Sad to see you go -_

 

This was going nowhere. All the courage 2D had was vanishing. His face was hot and he regretted standing up to him in the first place. This really was a mistake. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I-“

 

_\- Ever thought of calling, darling? –_

 

Murdoc scoffed and rolled his eyes, pulling his nails out of the man’s neck and grabbing a fist full of blue hair.

“Fuck, Dents, do I have to do everything for you?” He mocks, before closing the distance between their mouths. Their teeth clash, and Stuart’s eyes fly back open, lining with tears. His hands grip the older man’s shirt, pulling him closer.

“I want to hear you say it,” Murdoc says breathlessly.

 

_\- Do you want me crawling back to you? -_

Had he always felt this way?

In the morning, he knew he could be left feeling very confused about everything.

“Oh, fuck it.” He whispered, taking the chance he had.

Stuart sat himself in Murdoc’s lap, as Murdoc grabbed his waist and pulled him closer with a smirk before pulling him into a rough kiss once again. The younger man bit the older man’s lip, pulling it lightly with a smirk of his own. The kiss quickly turned desperate, hands weaving into hair and breaths being shared.

Pulling apart with strings of silver still connecting their mouths, they catch their breaths, looking back up at each other.

Murdoc still waited for the words.

“Muds, I ‘fink I love you.” The words fall out of kiss-bruised lips.

In the reflection of Stuart’s eyes, Murdoc can see himself almost smile.

“I know.”


End file.
